Shramdaan has been derived from two Sanskrit words shram (labour) and daan (donation) meaning donation of labour. In the past Shramdaan had played a significant role in building dams, water tanks, schools and monasteries etc. Now the tradition of Shramdaan is on the verge of extinction which needs to be preserved and encouraged among children, youth and elders of our society before it becomes a part of history.

Ark is a volunteer based organisation and encourages people to volunteer at least two hours a week. Two Hours a Week programme is very successful among students. This allows them to go to Ark Education Centres to teach while pursuing their education.

Successful experiments at Dhapo Slum (New Delhi), Jamalpur (Aligarh) and Kataila village (Ghazipur) strengthen our belief in the significant role of Shramdaan in bringing some positive change in our society.

It is because of this reason we are meeting on April 18,2004 so that we can revive our culture of Shramdaan. We are successfully running education centres at three places without creating any hurdle or problem in the regular work of our volunteers. We need to work on it to give a model so that it can be replicated in other places as well.

The important point is to work on a model to translate labour of ordinary people (volunteers) for extra ordinary result- Kataila is the best example. Here we are able to run a High School with the help of villagers. We just organised them and result is before us. In November 2002 UP government recognised it till 5th standard. This year we have introduced 11th standard also. It is because of this that every year 15-20 girls fro the village pass 10th standard.

Students of AMU, Aligarh are giving two hours a week to run an evening school in Jamalpur. We are receiving 150 children. About 100 are girls and about 70% of them never visited a school and others are school drop outs. We are working on making them to rejoin main stream schooling system.

Same is the story with Dhapo experiment in New Delhi, where JNU students were involved.

_____________________________________________________________
Sign up for Private, FREE email from Mail.ie at http://www.mail.ie

Your message has been successfully submitted and would be delivered to recipients shortly.